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Wednesday, 14 November 2012

Euro Area Industrial Production Shrinks for the First Time in 22 Months

Industrial production on a year-on-year (YoY) basis in the euro area shrank for the first time in 22 months figures released today by Eurostat show. The September figures show industrial production fell 1.6% compared to September last year. On a monthly basis it dropped 2.5%, the biggest drop since January 2009. The current index value of 97.37 is 12.4% lower than the highest number ever reported of 111.19 set in April 2008. This is a clear indication of one of the underlying fundamental economic problems facing the euro area, there simply is not enough production.

On a YoY percentage change basis for Europe overall, Slovakia (21.7% increase), Turkey (10.9% increase) and Estonia (9.4% increase) were the winners, while Greece (14.5% decrease), Macedonia (10.4 decrease) and Ireland (9.6% decrease) were the losers. It is also worth noting that France has delivered some very poor industrial production numbers for the last seven months, averaging a 0.5% decline on a YoY basis during this period.